


There's a way, out of no way

by Dekka



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst, Break Up and Make Up, M/M, Rough sex with a stranger, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, alcohol use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 19:53:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18556690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dekka/pseuds/Dekka
Summary: “Maybe take it easy, man.” The voice belongs to a stranger, just a nameless guy with light brown hair and a too-wide, honest smile.He could be Mitch, if Auston squinted and took a couple more shots, so he waves the bartender over.





	There's a way, out of no way

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings!!!! Rough sex with a stranger, where both parties have been drinking. Also, Auston's mental state in this fic is severely messed up because of a break up and realizing he doesnt have his usual support systems anymore. 
> 
> Disclaimer: This fic is 100% made up and very sad and not real in the slightest

Auston walks into his apartment, throws his coat on the table, and lands face-first into the couch cushions. He wants to scream, but his fists pounding into the cushion beneath him is as good a substitute as any. 

He’s too busy hating himself to hear the soft click of one of the bedroom doors opening. 

“Hey...are you okay?” Mitch is one of those people that always manages to show up at just the right time. Auston’s as thankful as he is annoyed. 

He pulls his face from the pillow, takes a deep breath he severely needs and admits, “I’ve been better.” The way his voice croaks betrays any semblance of sanity he hoped to retain. 

“Auston…” Mitch trails off, unsure. 

He tries to shrug, to reassure him, but even the weight of his shoulders is too much to bear after today. 

Everything that could go wrong did. In the end, it wasn’t even something monumental that took him over the edge; it was just him spilling his drink at the restaurant he was meeting someone at for lunch. 

They probably thought he was insane with the way his hands shook as he tried to mop up the water and ice cubes splayed over the table. 

It was something so stupid, so pointless. Any other day he would laugh off the accident, but after such a rough day that last slip left his pulse racing and his eyes burning hot. 

In the past, when Mitch was his- his best friend, his boyfriend- Mitch never used to hesitate to comfort him. Now, Auston can see his bare feet inch closer, then settle and stop in their grey rug. 

For that second, watching Mitch’s weight shift from foot to foot, Auston holds out hope that he’ll feel Mitch’s hand settle in his hair, stroke it back, and whisper sweet reassurances like he used to. 

Instead, Mitch takes a step back. “Maybe you should have Will over?” 

It’s awkward, is what it is. And Auston sympathizes, he really does. It’s not easy to live with your ex, and even less easy to comfort them physically or emotionally. 

Since their 'break,' things have been understandably tense around the apartment.

He doesnt know why he thought to come home today after everything. He doesnt know why he thought things could just go back to how they used to be just because he had one bad day and needed the comfort. 

“Auston?” 

Defeated, he nods, like he could even imaging calling Will right now and explaining how a fucking spilt water glass set him off. 

Those kind of mental breaks aren’t things you share with just anyone. 

“I’m just going to go to bed,” he decides. At least there he can hide away from everything. 

But even as he says it, he finds himself burrowing deeper into the blankets surrounding him, and taking deep, soothing breaths, as if just having Mitch in his proximity is enough to make the anxiousness bleed out of him. 

He basks in the moment for just a second more, steady under Mitch’s eyes even though he refuses to come closer. Auston swears he’ll get up in a minute.

“Um,” Mitch coughs. It’s the kind of awkward tone that has Auston bracing for his bad day to somehow get monumentally worse. 

“I’m…kind of having someone over in a bit.” 

_Oh._

He never thought they’d go from stolen kisses to stunted silences. 

Auston takes a breath, pushes himself to sit up and steadies himself with a hand gripped tight in the blankets. He barely manages to hold in the anger building in his chest, but does because he knows Mitch doesnt deserve that. 

“Like a guy?” He misses a casual tone by maybe a mile, maybe more. 

Mitch shrugs, like it’s nothing. He doesnt met his eyes. “Yeah, a guy.” 

Auston should’ve listened when his Dad said they were moving too fast. Maybe they’d still be together then. Maybe Mitch wouldn’t be inviting random guys back to _their_ apartment. 

“Congrats.” He tries to mean it, tries not to get lost in the way it feels like the ground is slipping out from under him. 

Four months ago, if he came home like this, his head would’ve been in Mitch’s lap by now. They’d put on a movie, order Thai food, and somehow things would be alright. Because they had each other. 

“I’ll put in headphones,” he offers weakly. 

Mitch winces. “I wasn’t going to-” then trails off under the weight of it. 

“Fuck him?” Auston finishes cruelly. 

The way Mitch’s face heats tells him all he needs to know. 

_Great._

_It’s great._

Why wouldn’t he love knowing that the guy he loves- loved- is already over him and on to the next bone. 

Auston cant stand this, cant just watch his life slip further and further out of his hands. 

“I’m going out,” he says, and whatever Mitch says to try to make him stay is lost under the slam of their front door. 

\- 

By his fourth back to back shot, the tension in his shoulders starts to unhinge. He feels less human like this, more like an animal, ready to fuck and forget. 

Mitch would be mad at him if he knew where he was right now. He was never the biggest fan of solving mental health crises with whiskey. Go figure. 

“Maybe take it easy, man.” The voice belongs to a stranger, just a nameless guy with light brown hair and a too-wide, honest smile. 

He could be Mitch, if Auston closed one eye and squinted the other and took a couple more shots, so he waves the bartender over. 

“Another round of shots and….” He looks to nameless for a drink order, but the guy just rolls his eyes. It’s not flattering on him. It just makes him seem rude instead of playful, like he’s trying too hard to joke with a stranger that doesnt know his sense of humor. 

Still, he’s got a nice body, lean but with a good build, even if his face is a bit too memorable. 

If Auston fucks him face down it wont be so bad. 

“Get a drink,” he prods, “on me.” 

No name smiles, like he’s trying to be coy; as if he’d have approached Auston for anything more than a quick fuck. “A vodka and sprite zero,” he eventually tells the bartender. 

Auston nearly leaves right then and there. If Mitch were here, they’d be taking hits at this guy, whispering to each other about his gluten-free personality. John would probably love him. They could get kale smoothies together on the weekends and wear boating shoes around the city mid-day.

He doesn't know why he considers which teammates would like this nameless guy. They already liked Mitch; hell, half of them love Mitch more than him. Even though they refused to take sides, they probably still think that Auston deserved to lose him after the last two shaky months of their relationship. 

The thoughts of those days are too vivid, too sickening. And even yet, when they fighting constantly, Auston was happier then than he is now. 

He does one more shot, then another. He vows to get drunk enough to ignore every single thought he has of Mitch, before or after their break. 

“You have a place close by?” He asks nameless. 

It isn't personal, so he never asks for the guy’s name, and he leaves the bar happier than he came.

-

They fuck like they’ve known each other for years, in an apartment that’s decent sized and nicely styled. It could be the alcohol, or maybe who Auston’s imagining, that make them so comfortable with each other, but he’s not too keen on thinking about it. 

When he comes, he pulls out, strips off the condom, and does it over the guy’s ass. It’s not personal, and when nameless tries to get a look, he shoves his face back into the pillow and keeps jacking himself through it. 

Mitch would’ve slapped at him for being so domineering, but nameless takes it like a champ, his moans muffled by the cushion Auston’s suffocating him in. 

When he’s well and truly done, his come smeared everywhere like he’s laid his claim, he gets up and grabs them a towel laying on the guy’s floor. 

“That was…wow, man. Amazing,” no name says, and he’s all bubbly, like he’s happy to have been fucked. He’s not like Mitch, who curls into Auston’s side and refuses to move for hours at a time after they’ve had sex. 

To think now, that Mitch is probably curled into some random guy’s side, looking up at him sedated and content, turns Auston’s stomach. 

“I’m gonna go,” he says, and starts picking their clothes up from the ground, separating them out. 

“Want my number?” 

He’s never wanted anything less. 

“Put it in,” he agrees, and throws the guy his phone. 

“I texted myself, so I’ll have yours too.” 

“Thanks,” Auston says. He doesnt remember what happens now with a quickie, as they hover in this awkward middle ground. It’s been too long since he’s had to pick up, since Mitch wasn’t the guy in his bed every night. 

“No, thank you,” nameless- Nick, Auston sees when he looks down at his phone- says. It’s probably supposed to be cute, him acting this way, all sly. 

It’s too much to pretend. He leaves as quick as he came, unable to trick his mind into believing that was Mitch when it’s so obviously not. 

-

The walk home ruins him. 

He’s drunk and he feels dirty, and he’s coherent enough to think in lines instead of circles. 

He misses Mitch. He misses his best friend. 

\- 

When he gets home, reality greets him like a slamming door- particularly Mitch’s slamming door. 

Auston doesnt even make it three steps into the apartment before the noise of it closing shut startles him.

Mitch’s too-loud laugh follows the noise, accompanied by a deeper tone. 

It takes everything in Auston to keep himself walking, putting one foot in front of the other. That used to be them, getting handsy wherever they could and sprinting to their rooms to keep out prying eyes. 

The image of Mitch with someone else is too much to handle. 

Something in him breaks, just like that, and anything he was feeling goes cold and numb. 

Even the racing of his heart can’t convince him he’s alive enough to feel. 

He pounds on Mitch’s bedroom door, even takes pride in the way their breathless laughing comes to an immediate halt. 

He cant help but listen closer, pray to hear a girl’s voice or anything that would reassure him that it’s just a friend in there. 

When the door creaks open, after what feels like a small eternity, Mitch barely peaks an eye out. 

“Sorry,” he says right away, “we’ll be quieter.” 

There’s a flush on his cheeks that cements what Auston was dreading, and in response he finds his head shaking, ‘no’. 

He’s done.

He pushes the door open, his whole body thrumming. 

It’s a bad idea. 

Mitch tries to stop him, tries to push him back. “Hey- _what the fuck_ \- Auston-”

He doesn’t care. He barrels past Mitch, gets to the bed, and suddenly everything stops short, his breath caught in his throat. 

It’s Willy. 

He swears he doesnt breathe, doesnt think he even knows how anymore. 

He’s his best friend. 

And he’s fucking his ex-boyfriend. 

It’s been months since him and Mitch separated, but it doesnt stop Auston from feeling like his chest has been skewered through with a hot knife. The betrayal is too much. Everything today has been too much. The feeling of loss, of grief, of mourning, nearly brings him to his knees. 

Willy was the one that took him out after his and Mitch's break up, who rubbed his back in the morning when he sobbed and puked and sobbed some more. He was the one who kept their teammates at bay, playing the middle man and keeping Mo’s worried stares to a minimum.

He was the one that told him that things would be okay. And all this time...

Hysterically, Auston wonders what more could he lose today.

“Get the fuck out,” he says, numb, and there’s nothing left in him, nothing that could possibly feel anything more than what he’s feeling right now. 

Mindless, he tears off the blankets from the bed, grabs at one of Willy’s kicking legs, and throws him to the floor. “Leave.” 

He doesnt know if he’s begging or yelling, his voice has gone hoarse. 

Ringing crowds his hearing. He can’t even tell what Mitch and Willy are saying to him. It’s all blurring together, one giant clusterfuck of never ending pain. 

He just knows if he has to look at his best friend’s startled, guilty face for one more second he’s going to kill him. 

“Auston,” Mitch tries, desperately grabbing for his arms to steady him, trying to be there for him now of all times. 

But Auston doesn't trust him anymore. Not after this. 

He presses a hand to Mitch’s chest to keep him at arm's length so that he won’t physically hurt him. He's not thinking right now, and that's dangerous. 

That same line drawn in the sand doesn't exist with William, who tries to calm him down and ends up dodging a fist.

“Matty, look at me,” Mitch begs, and turns him around with the kind of matching anger that makes Auston remember just how strong he is. 

But he can’t look at him for long, not able to stomach those blue eyes back on him again, looking tearful and scared. 

Just knowing he needs to get them as far away as possible, he grabs Mitch by the arm and drags him to the door. “I want you out, too. My name is on the lease. This is my apartment. I don’t ever want to see you again.” He can’t do this. Can’t comprehend everything that’s gone so wrong between them. 

Stupidly, Willy pulls him back before he can undo the lock. “You’re hurting him,” he yells, tugging at the grip Auston has on Mitch. He has no right to be mad. 

It doesnt process for a second, not until Auston shoves Will back with enough force that he’ll be slow to get up from the ground. It’s only once he’s out of his face that the words fully register. 

Slowly, his eyes go back to Mitch’s. He wants to say sorry, to take back all of today, but he looks at the man he loves as his world crumbles down around him and finds himself speechless. 

“Let me go,” Mitch says, no fear in his eyes despite the grip Auston has redoubled, as if holding him here would somehow bring them back together. 

It’s his words that make Auston release his arm like he was the one being hurt by it’s strength. He remembers, years ago, telling Mitch ‘ _all you have to do is ask. I’d do anything you asked me to_.’ But that was back when they were in love. He could've never imagined it would come to this, that those words would be used against him as a physical deterrent. 

As seconds pass, Auston’s mouth drops open, then shuts, words clinging to the tip of his tongue. There’s nothing he could say that would fix what’s gone wrong between them. 

“I loved you,” he admits, heartbroken in every sense of the word. 

It’s said with finality. Like this one moment is too much to handle if it's not the end. He’s breaking and there’s nothing left in him willing to pick up the pieces. 

Behind them, Willy gets himself up off the floor, but Auston couldn’t care enough to look, not when Mitch’s eyes are watering with unshed tears. 

“Willy-” Mitch starts, and Auston shakes his head, not wanting to hear another word. 

“Hey, listen to me,” Mitch demands, and shakes Auston like it’ll put them all back in place. “I wasn’t having sex with him. I wasn’t cheating on you-”

“We’re not together anymore, remember?” Auston reminds him bitterly. 

They’ve never yelled at each other like this. 

He doesnt expect Mitch’s eyes to turn steely, like he has any right to be mad, but they do. “I wasn’t cheating on you,” he repeats, slow, so much calmer than Auston could ever imagine right now. “I was trying to make you jealous. We were just going to make some noise, make you realize you maybe wanted me back they way I’ve wanted you.” 

The admittance rains over the silence. 

Auston doesnt feel anything. No elation, no nothing, maybe shock. 

“I’ll take that apology now,” Willy chirps sourly, rubbing at his jaw. “Thanks for the right hook.”

Auston can only look at him, comprehension miles away. 

“Sorry?” he says, but it’s not the apology Will’s looking for. It’s more of a confused stutter. “You didn’t do anything?” He asks then, slow. He needs to be sure. He needs to know that his best friend and his ex-boyfriend wouldn't do this to him. 

“We jumped on the bed a bit that’s it,” Mitch promises. 

It’s so stupid. 

All Mitch would have to do is ask him to be his again and he’d agree in a heartbeat. 

They could've spared so much pain, so much anger and hurt. 

“Why?” He can’t take anymore today, can’t even imagine how he’d handle an unfavorable answer, but his mouth moves without his permission. 

“Because I still love you,” Mitch croaks, in a rush that seems to be spurred on by nothing more than anguish. 

It’s what Auston’s wanted to hear since they took their break. These last two months have been nothing but torture while he’s slept down the hall and tried to keep his distance from someone whose name is written all over his heart and every moment of his adult life. 

Careful, like he’s scared it’s all just an illusion, he tugs Mitch a step closer. Just one step. 

And when Mitch doesn't push away, doesn't look at him like he’s crazy, Auston closes the distance between them, wrapping his arms around Mitch like he’s sure he’ll be torn away the second he stops gripping him with all the strength he can muster. 

It feels like they stay there for hours, their hands clenching onto each other and tears soaking one another’s shoulders. 

Auston could live right here, in this moment, the scent of Mitch’s body wash sweet in his senses. For the first time in months, he takes in refreshing lungfuls of air, finally able to breathe again. 

“I love you,” he says, and if the tears clouding his vision weren’t proof enough, the way his body melts when Mitch hugs him impossibly tighter would be.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments feed the writer. 
> 
> This one hit home but I have a happier, make up sequel of a part two written for this so if you'd like to see more let me know and let me know what you'd like to see


End file.
